Regarding the designs of playing cards

The quality of playing card designs often deteriorates with time

" if we do not study the ancient work directly and learn to understand it, we shall find ourselves influenced by the feeble work all around us, and shall be copying the better work through the copyists and without understanding it, which will by no means bring about intelligent art"

William Morris in The Decorative Arts, a lecture given to the Trades Guild of Learning, London 1877.